Tag: #WritingLife

  • Small Town Research

    For Labor Day, I took the three days to not write. I only journaled on Saturday morning, but that was all of the physical act of writing that I did.

    We spent time out of New York City, and tried to honestly forget about being stuck in our apartment, and all the other things that are going wrong due to Covid.

    I was able to get the family to go with me upstate to look at some of the towns and the region that I am thinking about as the setting as the novel. I took pictures on my phone, and thought about how some places are just tourist traps, while other small towns fight hard not change what they have been for decades.

    Most ideas being thrown on the heap…

  • A Place in the Woods, Reading and Writing Stories

    This morning, when I was journaling in the park, as I was running through some ideas and desires, I had a thought that, “I wish I had a place in the woods to read books and write.”

    Then my mind jumped right to an interview I had for a theatre conservatory in San Francisco back in January 2019. The interview was going really well, and then the woman asking me questions shot out, “If money wasn’t an object, what would you being doing right now?” And without missing a beat, I blurted, “I would be living at a place in the woods, reading books and writing stories.” She smiled a disappointed smile at me, and that pretty much ended the interview. It was clearly not the answer she wanted, as I didn’t get the job.

    Then I was reminded of an interview I had in February of this year for a rather prestigious theatre company. I had made it to the final round, and the managing director of the company asked me pretty much the same question, and again I said, “I would be living at a place in the woods, reading books and writing stories.” I think there were other issues with my candidacy, but again, I didn’t get the job.

    It reminded me of Maya Angelou’s quote, “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”

    I think sentiment cuts both ways.

    When I show people who I really am, I should believe it myself, the first time.

  • Reading Challenge for Fall

    The one thing that I am really sucking at right now is reading books. I mean, I do read, but with everything going on, I have not been consistent. And what I am reading right now is the news, and news related publications. I used to read before I would go to bed, but now, I’m exhausted and overwhelmed at the end of the day, and I just zone out with stupid TV, and fall asleep.

    I know that is no excuse, as reading needs to be a habit. Or at least that’s what I tell the kid. Yeah, I’ve turned into a “Do what I say, not what I do” parent.

    Then the other day, a writer friend posted that she was going to use the Fall to immerse herself in the work of a writer that she should have read, but for whatever reason never got around to. I thought that was a very intriguing challenge, being that there are so many great writers that, for whatever reason, I never get around to as well. The first name that popped into my head was John Cheever. I know a good deal about Cheever, but I have never read a word of him, not even a short story.

    I think for my mental well being, I have to have a goal attached to my actions, no matter what the action. This will be the Fall of John Cheever. I want to see how much of his work I can read. It’s like I am trying to make 2020 the year of accomplishing. It just might be the only control I can exude over my life right now.

  • Journaling at the Park

    Yesterday, it rained in the morning, which meant that we didn’t get to have our early park time. No running around for the kid, and making new friends. And no sitting on a bench and writing in my journal. Over the course of this pandemic, park time has become a very essential, and needed outlet for the kid and me. She gets to burn off energy and have social interactions with other kids, and I get to start my day with organizing my thoughts.

    It was a slight monkey wrench to our day, but the sun did come out later, so we were able to make a late day park visit. The later time allowed us to discovered a whole different group of kids that my daughter loved playing with, and I got to have the introspection from the end of a day, rather than the beginning.

    I have been writing in a journal since I was 18, and I have over 30 notebooks filled. I like to think of myself like Thoreau when it comes to writing in a journal, but do sometimes wonder if I’m not the crazy recluse guy in the neighborhood, jotting down meaningless things in his notebooks. (It’s a fine line.) I have been journaling so long, that it is an engrained habit. But they aren’t reference books. Only rarely do I pick one up and go through it to see what I was thinking way back when. And I don’t use them to work out “story ideas” or anything like a creative workbook/sketchbook. It’s just a catching place of ideas, thoughts, sketches, and feelings… maybe a little documentation of events, but not very often. Journaling for me is a cathartic exercise. It is immediate, spontaneous, and in the moment, which again and again, I seem to discover is a theme for me when it comes to the art I enjoy. With everything going on in the world right now, I need to have an outlet for all of these pent-up emotions, and hopefully, I can find a constructive use for them.

  • Research and Sticking to Reality

    There was a silly question which I posed to my wife yesterday in regard to the novel. She had walked in the door from walking the dog, and I said to her, “So don’t read into this, but what do you know about getting a divorce in New York?”

    I am lucky to have my wife, who has fielded strange questions from me for years, so she didn’t even bat an eye at this one. “Not a whole lot,” she said, “but I know they suck.”

    And with that, I am forced to do research.

    As we are all stuck at home, I have started reading on the internet, and going to legal sites to discover the ins and outs of DIY divorces, and lawyers, and the fact that no one is happy about getting divorced.

    The worst part is that by starting to do the most basic of research, I have already discovered some statements that I had the protagonist make about the divorce process, are factually wrong, and not how it works in New York. I made the note, and when I start rewriting, I will incorporate this information in. Though, working this information in will affect a small subplot in the novel, which will force me to figure out how to adjust the subplot, or just cut it.

    And then I had a thought; if I am writing fiction, then I can just make up whatever I want. Who says that I have to follow how the real-world works? This isn’t a documentary, but when I write, I have this compulsion that I have to stick everything into reality. If New York State has a 60-day waiting period before a divorce is finalized, then I can’t write about a situation where that doesn’t exist.

    Right?

    I have also heard it said by a writer friend that you should only do research after you complete the first draft. “Don’t let facts get in your way from telling a good story.”